


The Moonflower: A Chronicle of the Fall of Emon

by themoonflower



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Gilmore is the Scarlet Pimpernel, Gilmore/Vax Post Episode 38 Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 07:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10940001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themoonflower/pseuds/themoonflower
Summary: Set mostly during the events of episodes 39-41, with a few references to other parts of the series as well as a bit of made up back story. Basically my love letter to Critical Role in general and everyone’s favourite well dressed sorcerer in particular.It started out as the thought “Gilmore’s offscreen duel with Thordak would be fun to write” then morphed into “so why did Uriel trust a random shopkeeper with the safety of his family anyway” then took Matt’s comments in a couple of places that Gilmore had shades of the Scarlet Pimpernel and ran with it.Some post-episode-38 Vaxmore angst but it's not the main focus of the story.





	1. Prologue: The Origin

Anyone who visited Emon around the time of the Promenade Kidnappings might have witnessed the start of the legend of the Moonflower.

It began with the disappearance of five children, all from high ranking families of one of the most powerful trade guilds, taken from their homes at night. Ransom notes found at the scene demanded not just money for the safe return of the little ones, but specific deals and concessions with respect to a rival guild, which when questioned claimed no responsibility for or even knowledge of the incident.

A few days later, one of the children’s bodies, its soul connection already severed by an unsuccessful resurrection ritual, was found in the entrance to the guild headquarters with a note pinned to it, saying that since the conditions had not been met, the child’s life was forfeit, and that further delay would result in further consequences.

Two more children disappeared the following night. Tensions quickly escalated between the two guilds to the point that a literal fistfight broke out when representatives from both organizations were speaking to representatives of the ruling council the afternoon after the second set of kidnappings.

The next morning, all six missing children were home safe in their beds.

Two dead men were found by the nearest guard station, each wrapped around the chest with a bow made of wide blue silk, each with a sprig of moonflowers tucked into the bow. A note pinned to one of them read, _We were holding the children on the order of Guildmaster Torvald Anders to frame his business enemies. Speak With Dead will confirm._

Neither the children nor the dead men when questioned could reveal anything about the identity of their rescuer other than that he was apparently male. None had seen his face.

The incident would have been memorable regardless, but the anonymous nature of the rescue made it sensational. Much was made of the fact that no one came forward to claim responsibility and collect the reward offered by the city council, other than a few hopeful opportunists. Even more was made of the flowers pinned to the criminals. Was it a message? A clue? A calling card?

The gossip reached the ears of the young man who, two weeks earlier, had sold a strangely nervous Guildmaster Anders a set of potions of climbing from his magical item stand located a few blocks from the guild headquarters, and it made him smile.

It was a shame about the reward, because he could certainly use the money, but coming forward would invite too many questions and too much of the wrong sort of attention. Although he was anything but shy, the specifics of his own magical prowess were something he had always been careful to keep a closely guarded secret to avoid any chance of calling attention to his rare and powerful bloodline. So he stayed quiet.

And it might have ended with that, if he had not noticed some children playing a few days later. A little boy shrieked in mock distress while a slightly older girl brandished a stick and declared “Don’t worry, I’m the Moonflower, I’ll save you!” and chased a third child down the street. They all ran off giggling, leaving the young merchant to contemplate how much his impulsive decision to gift wrap the thugs had added to the drama of the incident.

It had been an afterthought, almost a joke, just something to let the anonymous act reflect a bit of his flamboyant personality. The flowers had been picked from the first garden he had passed after dropping the last child off, the type chosen simply because the pretty night blooming blossoms had caught his eye. But in the public’s imagination it had somehow become the signature of a mysterious hero.

And the shopkeeper who had the heart of a showman began to laugh as he realized he no longer had to wonder how he was going to be able to test out all the amazing new items and enchantments he wanted to add to his repertoire.

The following month, a string of suspicious fires in the Erudite Quarter came to an end when the arsonist was found bound and unconscious outside a guard house, wrapped around with a ribbon and with moonflowers tucked into her hair.

This was going to be _glorious._


	2. The Announcement

Many years later, Shaun Gilmore sat in the back room of his eponymous store, putting the finishing touches on his outfit.

This robe was a new one, navy blue rather than his trademark purple but still decorated with the gold trim he favored, and it made him look quite dashing. It was a sample from a prospective new vendor, and he wanted to verify that the defensive enchantments on it were solid before he agreed to a contract.

The lightning wand he had attuned earlier in the day rested comfortably in its holster at his belt. Its creator claimed that improvements in materials and workmanship would result in finer control and better recharge rate, justifying an increased asking price. Gilmore intended to test that out, too.

He couldn’t personally do quality assurance on every item, of course, couldn’t have done that even back when he was first starting out. But he always tried to put a good sampling of his stock through its paces before putting it on the market, especially if it came from a new source. It was part of what made his establishment the premier destination for discerning adventurers that it was.

And if perhaps he was feeling a little out of sorts today and looking to work off some frustration, that was entirely his own business.

Not that he was, of course.

He adjusted his hair tie, then dabbed on a bit of cologne, a spicy Marquesian scent. He had not returned to his tiny hometown or even Ank’Harel in years, but he always carried a bit of the desert with him in his personal aesthetic. Presentation was so important, after all, and a purveyor of exotic goods should look fashionably exotic himself. He examined himself in the mirror and switched out a couple of earrings.

Lastly, he reached into a drawer in his desk, opened the locked hidden compartment, and took out a small rectangle of card: black, with a stylized representation of a moonflower engraved on it in silver. When he passed his hand over the image, the card blurred briefly into an actual flower shape, then back. Good, no need to refresh the enchantment yet. He tucked it into a pocket.

He didn’t leave his calling card every time he went out looking for trouble, only when the occasion seemed appropriate. But this event in the Cloudtop should give him the chance to hear plenty of interesting gossip from the city’s movers and shakers, and that meant he might not need to resort to wandering the slums in disguise trolling for muggers tonight just to pick a fight.

Sherri, his senior assistant, put her head through the beaded curtain that marked off his private area and tapped gently on the doorframe. “Gilmore?” she said. “I know you said to give your usual excuse while you got ready, but a couple of gentlemen from Vox Machina are here looking for you.”

Gilmore grimaced slightly. “I’m afraid I don’t think I have the time right now for—”

“Oh, _he_ _’s_ not with them,” Sherri cut in. “I wouldn’t have bothered you otherwise.”

Gilmore blinked at her suddenly frosty expression. “I beg your pardon?”

She adjusted her glasses. “You may recall I asked you yesterday why you were—were not quite your usual jovial self.”

“Yes, to which I merely said that I had received some disappointing news.”

“News which, had it been business related, you would not have hesitated to discuss with me in detail. Therefore I surmised that the disappointment was a personal one.” She gave a sniff that said a great deal about her thoughts on the matter. “Anyway, as I said, he’s not here with them. It’s just Scanlan and the goliath. Asking about scrying.”

“Oh,” he said, relieved, then the relief turned to bemusement. “Oh god, that specialty potion again? Well, never mind, I may as well come.”

He followed Sherri out onto the sales floor. Scanlan was waiting at the counter, and Gilmore apologized for the slight deception of Sherri’s cover statement that he had already left for Westruun. He liked the bard, enjoyed his quick wit and flair for the dramatic, although some of his more… creative ideas were a little worrying.

Thankfully, however, it seemed that a refill of the experimental scat-scrying potion Scanlan had commissioned a while back wasn’t the only thing on his mind. He was looking to do some more conventional scrying on someone, and the unusually serious look in the gnome’s eyes made Gilmore wonder who it was and why.

A conversation for another day, though. Time was getting on, and they all needed to get to the Cloudtop for whatever this important announcement was. Sherri could close up and send the rest of the staff on their way. She would let him know if there was anything he needed to attend to in the morning.

Grog emerged from the rear of the shop, apparently giving up on whatever he had been trying to get from a junior clerk, and Gilmore offered an arm to each of them so they could make a silly tableau of contrasting heights as they left the shop.

They made their way to the Cloudtop district where a crowd of notable citizens was already growing, and Gilmore thought he might be able to slip away quietly from Grog and Scanlan before they rejoined the rest of Vox Machina, but he wasn’t so lucky. He found himself in the midst of all of them, and, hoping he didn’t let on how awkward it felt, he gave them all a friendly wave, at least until he came to Vax’ildan. There he only managed a cordial nod, which Vax returned without quite meeting his gaze.

At least it was awkward for both of them, he supposed.

Vex’ahlia flashed him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, darling,” she mouthed silently, her eyes darting towards her brother and back.

Of course she knew. Either Vax had told her, or she had seen their talk the other night for herself.

That was enough for him. He called out to an acquaintance at random and fled into the throng.

Give him a few days to work through his feelings and burn off some steam and he would be fine, he was sure, but right now it was just a bit too new. His stomach did an unhappy little flip at the memory of Vax sitting across from him, wearing the charmingly serious expression that Gilmore couldn’t resist, and telling him that he could no longer continue their long-running almost-romance. The flirtation and playful innuendo that had always been a part of their friendship, and which had lately seemed to be drifting closer and closer to blossoming into something more, was no longer something Vax could keep up, as he had developed feelings for someone else.

Gilmore had taken the news with all the dignity and good grace that he could muster, of course, but yes, it had been a disappointment, and he had wandered home that night cursing himself a little for not having been just a little bolder, not having actually taken Vax up on one of his playfully suggestive comments and seeing where it took them when the chance had been there. He was not a man generally given to dwelling on regrets, but it was going to be a while before he got some of those might-have-beens out of his system.

Even now, he found himself turning back and his eyes picking Vax’s lean, strong form out of the crowd, tracing the line of his—

_Dammit._ He forced himself around again and made his way purposefully towards the stage.

Who did he think he was kidding, anyway? This was for the best. Their dance had been fun, more than fun, but they were both extremely busy people: Vax was an adventurer who spent weeks at a stretch away getting into all kinds of peril, and Gilmore’s business dealings left him precious little time for leisure these days. How would they have even made that work?

He just had to give his friend some space and let life go on. Yes, it would be difficult at first until they adjusted to new boundaries, but Gilmore valued their friendship too much to want to break it off completely. Besides, he was a grown man who didn’t have the time to sit around pining. He had plenty to keep himself occupied.

Speaking of which, he had gossip to seek out.

His last calling card worthy exploit as the Moonflower had involved a magical practitioner who had started moonlighting as a serial killer in order to provide herself with the freshest of dead bodies for her experiments in necromancy. He hadn’t even had to go looking for that one—the killer had been a customer who had been ordering specific combinations of ritual supplies too frequently. He had already resolved to do a bit of digging into what she was getting up to by the time the mysterious deaths began to attract attention. Facing her down and clearing out her sanctum had been an unpleasant, exhausting business requiring him to be “in Westruun” for a couple of days (he still reveled in how _amazing_ having that excuse was).

He had to be careful to make sure that not too many of his missions could be associated with his shop, though, because it would be easy to do so. So many people seemed to just think of merchants as anonymous faces dispensing items from behind a counter, who didn’t hear talk or remember what people bought or recognize their own items’ capabilities when they heard of a crime being committed through some arcane means. So he tried to make sure to do some completely unrelated things as well, like recovering that stolen gem shipment a few months back.

That had been fun, although when he had seen the gems from that shipment again as a customer and found out the prices on some particularly nice specimens with excellent magical focusing qualities, he had almost wished he had not returned quite _everything._

The talk he was hearing now, though, didn’t seem likely to lead him to any immediate opportunities. It was largely about Sovereign Uriel himself and recent events. He realized that his frequent trips out of town lately had kept him out of the loop a bit. He knew a bit about the Briarwood incident, probably more than most of the people still talking about it here, but what was this about Riskel Daxio? And why was General Krieg’s old place said to be haunted?

Uriel had apparently been under a lot of strain lately and his erratic behaviour (rumored to have been the result of a magical mental compulsion) had been weighing heavily on the minds of himself and many of his subjects. Was this announcement going to be related to his recent instability? Or possibly a continuation of it?

By the time the sun sank behind the horizon and the procession arrived, Gilmore was worried enough to be fully focused on whatever this announcement was going to be, his own troubles and plans forgotten for the moment. He loved the city he had chosen to call home, and he had thought that all was well with it. Finding out it might not be was deeply troubling. Were the royal family and the inner council fully free now from the internal and external threats that had been plaguing them recently?

He wove his way through the crowd until he was right at the edge of the stage so as to get the best view of the proceedings. The Sovereign himself looked tired, worn, older than his years, as he stood and began his opening remarks welcoming the crowd and thanking them for coming on such short notice.

Why was his whole family here with him? Empress Salda sat with the children, looking grave. Gren and Illiya, the younger two, fidgeted slightly in their seats, but Odessa sat rigidly, holding her mother’s hand, intent on her father’s words.

“We mourn our friend, and ask you all to respect his legacy enough to not smear his name,” Uriel was saying. Damn, that Daxio business sounded shady as hell. He would have to find out more about it.

The look on Odessa’s face made him even more uneasy. The princess was almost in her teens, old enough to pay attention to the events and decisions going on around her, but too young yet to have any say in those events and decisions, and too young yet to have learned to mask her reactions to them. It was a tough age to be.

Uriel was still talking. “We’ve been faced with deceit, and I failed to see it.”

Odessa looked like she had been crying.

“I look back at my bloodline, that my father and his father before him and I plainly see what I am not.”

_Oh Uriel, no._

“As of the end of this week, I will be stepping down as your Sovereign.”

It occurred to Gilmore as a quiet murmuring started up in the crowd that nearly every prominent citizen as well as the royal family and the council of Tal’Dorei were assembled in this square.

“You, the peoples of Emon, will be the ones to guide us to a new age of prosperity.”

If there were to be any kind of attack, right here, right now…

A guard approached Seeker Asum Emring of the council and began speaking to him quietly but urgently. The halfling frowned, looking worried.

Had something just passed by overhead?

Uriel continued his speech, but Gilmore was no longer even half listening. Something was wrong, very wrong, about all of this.

As if in confirmation of his fears, the alarm bells started up.

Gilmore did not know what the threat was, but it sounded bad. Good god, he might have been able to do something about an assassination attempt, but whatever was causing this much commotion must be far beyond that. The bells were getting louder, more urgent, sounding from multiple directions. This had to be an all out assault on the city, out of nowhere, just as the city’s leadership was gathered in once place. What could someone like him do about something like that?

Seeker Asum had stepped up to the podium as Uriel hurried to his family and the guards moved in around them. “If I might ask you to all quickly make your way to your respective homes…”

Now that, he could do. And his home happened to have an underground room built and enchanted to withstand anything he could think of. Suddenly the expense did not seem like whimsical paranoia anymore.

He didn’t need to return to it alone.

But how to get them to come with him? He was a successful shopkeeper with something of a reputation in the arcane community, but he had never drawn much attention to himself in any arena other than the commercial. Why should the ruler trust his safety and that of his family to a random merchant?

Well, he did have one card he could play, literally. He had never revealed his alter ego to anybody, but if ever there was a time to capitalize on the reputation of the Moonflower, it was now.

By the time the enormous ancient white dragon came into view, Gilmore had already misty-stepped up onto the stage, squeezed past the guards, and pressed the black and silver calling card—the symbol of the mysterious folk hero whose first known act had been rescuing children—into Uriel’s hand. “Let me take you to safety,” he said, and punctuated it by simultaneously using a bit of magic to funnel the same message directly into the sovereign’s ears.


	3. The Escape

There was power in Gilmore’s voice. Even beyond the simple spell he was using, his magic was sourced in the sheer force of his will and personality, and he had always been good at capturing attention when he wanted it. So when he spoke with this level of urgency, whoever he was speaking to _noticed,_ even through the increasing noise and confusion.

“Who the hell are you?” demanded a guard, raising her weapon. A great shudder shook the square as the dragon slammed into the tower of Arcanist Allura Vysoren, the absent council member.

Gilmore tried to ignore both the attack and the guard, intent on dragging the Sovereign’s attention back to himself and his offer. “I know you know whose card this is,” he said, still magically echoing his voice into Uriel’s ears. “You’ve seen at least one of them before.” There had been some stolen art returned to the palace a few years ago, for one thing.

Uriel’s gaze shifted back to him, then to the card. He passed his hand over it, making it blur and change. Then he stared back at Gilmore, realization dawning.

“Yes, it’s mine,” Gilmore said. “And there is _no time to explain_ but please trust that I have a safe place I can take you and your family!”

The enormous creature on the tower unleashed its fury into an upper window and out the other side. The freezing breath attack sparkled in the dying twilight, and the shocked crowd started to scream and panic.

Uriel’s stunned look hardened into a mask of resolve. “Salda, take them and go with this man,” he said. “Go now.”

“Papa?” Odessa asked.

“I will come if I can,” he said. He picked up his son, kissed his hair, and handed him to Gilmore, then did the same for Illiya, putting her in Gilmore’s other arm. “Be good, my darlings.” He looked at his wife. “I need to see to the people here. Knowing you are safe will help me do that.”

“Your majesty…” Gilmore began.

The ruler shoved him towards the steps to the stage. “If you’re going to save them, go now!” he shouted, then turned away from them to his guards and started barking orders as they tried to usher him away.

Gilmore saw the dragon push off from the tower, which began to crumble, and didn’t need any more prompting. He hurried down the steps and skirted the edge of the square, trying to avoid the mad rush of the fleeing crowd. Rather than the nearest gate out of the Cloudtop, he aimed for a lane heading deeper into the district. The sooner he could find an open door, the sooner he could get the family to safety and perhaps go back for Uriel.

The children in his arms were heavy, and Illiya was struggling a little as she cried out for her papa, but Gilmore was strong for a mage. He consciously kept his strength up by moving crates of wares by hand instead of with magic, so the burden didn’t slow him much.

At the edge of the square, he looked back to check that Salda and Odessa were following, and saw a sight that froze his blood. A _second_ ancient dragon flew in and landed on the wall above the stage with a shuddering impact that briefly silenced the chaos of the crowd in its sheer terrifying enormity. The creature grinned, curling its wings around its form as it looked around.

Dear gods, a white _and_ a green, both ancient. Had they chosen this unlucky place to have a quarrel with each other?

Salda and Odessa ran ahead, hand in hand, and Gilmore shook himself from the vision of death and hurried to lead the way again. He wasn’t going to have the luxury of being choosy, he realized. The first place with any kind of shelter would have to do.

“Delicious cattle,” came a harsh booming voice from the square behind them. “Raishan enjoys the taste of fear.”

No, not quarreling. They were _both_ attacking the city. _Together._

Gilmore ducked down the next side street they passed and into the first space between buildings that formed a blind alley with a tiny bit of cover provided by overhanging roofs. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing. He put Gren and Illiya down and quickly stretched out his arms, then bent to clear the pebbles and other debris from a roughly circular patch of cobblestones.

He heard crashing noises and then a chorus of agonized screams that died out frighteningly quickly. Next to him, Salda had pulled off her coat and was sweeping the ground with it.

More crashes. Was that a _third_ dragon landing? That did seem to be another cruel voice laughing. What in the nine hells was happening?

Somewhere off in the distance, something exploded. The children shrieked with fear and cowered against the wall.

Gilmore crouched in the cleared patch, chalk in his hand. “My lady,” he said, as dust and other debris started falling down around him with the continued impacts, “if you would be so kind as to try to keep anything from falling into the circle.”

She nodded, and held her now soiled jacket out, preparing to use it to deflect anything that might fall towards him. Odessa, looking pale but determined, joined her, holding an outer skirt that she had torn away from her dress.

It was a good thing they had, because a moment later a burst of fire somewhere nearby sent a shower of sparks in their direction.

Gilmore shut out everything but the spell he was building and the symbols he was marking on the pavement. Drawing the circle out by hand in residuum-infused chalk was the only option with the air currents whipping the dust around, but it was tricky, especially on uneven ground, and took longer than he liked. No helping it, though.

A crash that sounded like half the windows in the district breaking at once shook the area, coming from the direction of the palace. A new voice, even more terrible than the previous ones, rang through the district, though Gilmore was too caught up in the spell to catch the words.

At least his destination was one he had installed himself, marking these same symbols out onto his safe room floor day after day, literally hundreds of times until they became permanent. He could have drawn this pattern blindfolded.

Salda missed a falling cinder and it landed on the back of his neck, burning him and threatening to break his concentration, but he ignored the pain, ignored everything except trying to build the spell as quickly as he could, trying to shave precious seconds off the casting time. He dimly heard huge wingbeats as one or more dragons took off again.

The spell finally completed and he could tell the connection was good. “Go!” he cried as the portal sprang up. Salda wasted no time urging the children through and then following herself. “I’ll try to find him,” he promised just before she vanished.

As the magic faded, he saw two figures hurrying into the alley. A wave of flame passed overhead, revealing them to be the council members Seeker Asum and that dragonborn paladin of Bahamut—what was her name again?

“Who the hell are you and what have you done with them?” the paladin demanded. “What is your connection with all this?” She looked about to draw her weapon.

Asum made a placating gesture. “Please, Tofor.” Tofor, right, that was it. “This is Mr. Gilmore of Gilmore’s Glorious Goods, a well-respected citizen. I saw Uriel entrust his family to this man’s care.” But he was looking at Gilmore with questions in his eyes. This was the Master of Secrets, curious and paranoid by nature. “That was nicely done to put up a circle in these conditions.”

“I have a knack for teleportation,” Gilmore said with a shrug, declining the implicit request for further explanation.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Tofor growled. “Send us to them too.”

Gilmore gestured at the rain of sparks, coming down fiercely now just outside the meager overhang of the connecting roofs where they stood. “I’m good, but I’m not _that_ good,” he said. “We’ll have to walk, or find somewhere indoors.” He pulled a scroll from his pocket. The rest of the staff would have long since left for the day, but Sherri always stayed late.

“We walk,” said Asum. “We’ll want to try to find Uriel on our way back through anyway. Where have you sent them?”

Gilmore laid the parchment flat against the wall and scribbled on it with a charcoal pencil. “I have a teleport circle in a secure room under my shop’s living quarters,” he said as he wrote. _Attack on the city. Royal family in my safe room. Drop EVERYTHING and get down there NOW. Be there soon._ “It’s underground and heavily protected. As safe as anything could be called in this city right now, and at least it’s outside the Cloudtop.” He sent the note off in a small puff of arcane energy. “Let’s go. Where did you last see the Sovereign?”

“We’re not sure,” Asum admitted as they headed out of the alley back towards the square. “We lost sight of him in the chaos and decided to try to find you and the family instead. You really have a fortified bunker under your bedroom?”

“Yes, lucky for me.” The square began to come back into view as Gilmore retraced his steps. Lit up by the nearby burning buildings, the sight made him feel sick to his stomach. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes since he took the children and ran, but in those few minutes the scene had gone from mad panic to eerie stillness. People still ran and screamed all around them in the side street, but in the square itself, nothing moved. The white and green dragons were nowhere to be seen.

“And a private sigil besides the one in your back room we already knew about?” Asum pressed.

The stage was nothing but scrap wood now, much of it in flames. A haze lay over the area, too dark to be just smoke—likely the remnants of the poisonous breath the green dragon must have belched forth. And so many bodies…

There was something wrong with the silhouette of the palace. It was too tall, too top-heavy.

“What do you mean, the one you already knew about?” Gilmore asked to distract himself from the terrible sight. “And seriously, is this really the time?”

“Magical points of entry are a matter of security,” Asum said. “I try to know where all the permanently installed ones are.” They were nearly to the square now, and the acrid smell of the poisonous fume was making Gilmore’s eyes sting.

Then the “palace” breathed fire.

He had thought the white and green dragons had been enormous. But the sight of this _thing_ using the castle as a throne and casually breaking off a chunk of masonry to fling over the wall into the lower city…

A scaled hand clamped onto his wrist. “No time to stand around and stare, gentlemen,” Tofor said, and pulled him and Asum along. Gilmore hadn’t even noticed himself freezing in terror, but he was suddenly able to move again thanks to the paladin’s brisk encouragement. They got out of the street and behind the cover of one of the stone buildings that bordered the square.

“Is that even a real dragon?” Asum breathed. “ _Nothing_ should be that big!” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Damn it, we’re not going to be able to get in there until the air clears. If Uriel didn’t make it out, he’s beyond our aid for now.”

“We get to the family,” Tofor said. “Make sure they’re all right. Then we look for the Sovereign.”


	4. The Return Home

Asum nodded, then turned back to Gilmore. “If you are not being straightforward with us, merchant, it will go very ill for you,” he said. “I don’t much care for surprises that involve the safety of the realm and the royal family, and you are proving to be full of surprises.”

Gilmore shook his head. “No tricks, I swear,” he said. “I just had the right resource to offer at the right time and the presence of mind to offer it.”

“Remarkable presence of mind, yes,” Asum said as a jet of flame roared through the lane next to them, followed by booming laughter loud enough to shake the ground at the new screams that sounded. “You are showing a _very_ different side of yourself from what I have ever seen of you.”

“There’s a time and a place for showmanship,” Gilmore said, quirking his thumb in the direction of the dragon and giving a reflexive smile. “I’m not particularly interested in getting _him_ as a customer. But if _you_ are looking for any of my fine array of wares, I’ll be right back on form.”

Asum laughed. It was a brief, half hysterical chuckle, and it vanished quickly, but it was there, and some of the edge left his voice. “But seriously. Why do you have a smuggler’s cave under your store? I am almost entirely certain you’re not smuggling, because we examined your business dealings quite closely and you came up clean.”

Gilmore frowned. Why would the city’s intelligence network have been that interested in him?

“Your association with Vox Machina,” the Seeker said, reading the question in his face.

_That_ hit home. Gilmore’s blood ran cold as he suddenly remembered they had been at the gathering too. He pushed himself away from the wall, almost stumbling. “Vax. _Vax!_ _”_ he called out.

The paladin hauled on his arm. “Shut up, you idiot,” she hissed. “What’s the _matter_ with you?”

“He was there. They were all there!” Only her grip on him kept him from breaking into a sprint into the square. “Keyleth, Scanlan, _Vax!_ _”_

Asum shoved him back into the wall. “Get a hold of yourself, man,” he said. “We all have people we are worried about right now, but we need to focus. We need to get to your shop and see to the family. Either they made it out or they didn’t, same as with Uriel. Running in there right now won’t help them. It will just get you killed.”

The dragon was roaring again now, something about his new domain as the Cinder King. Gilmore wanted to break away from the grips his companions had on him. But Asum held his gaze until he had to look away. “You’re right,” he said at last. “Let’s go. I’m sorry I lost my head.”

The halfling took a moment to cast a spell, and the shadows around them seemed to deepen. “You’re doing very well,” he said as they began to pick their way carefully through the district towards the gate that would take them to Abadar’s Promenade, staying out of the square and trying to keep from attracting the enormous dragon’s notice. “Honestly, seeing that you _are_ capable of panic is a bit of a relief. I was really beginning to wonder about you.”

“Sure, thanks." _No, I was just so intent on the royal family that I literally forgot about my friends,_ he thought bitterly as they went.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Asum continued the next time they reached cover. “I’m still wondering about you. But at least I know your nerves aren’t _that_ invincible.” He put his small hand on Gilmore’s arm to make him pause before continuing into another open space, as he checked to make sure it was safe to pass, then nodded and kept talking quietly, trusting the ambient noise to cover the sound. “Please don’t think I am making light of your worries. It is my job and my nature to be suspicious of everyone and everything. But I know you are close with them, in fact if I’m not mistaken I believe you are involved with the one young man—”

Gilmore pulled his arm away. “With all due respect, spymaster,” he said, “unless my personal life is truly relevant to the security of the kingdom and whether or not we live through the next few minutes, I think perhaps this is not the time.”

“Touchy,” grumbled Tofor.

“Hush,” said Asum to her. “My apologies, Gilmore, I meant no offense.”

They made the rest of their way out of the district in silence.

Gilmore was glad not to have to trade more words with the Master of Secrets for now. The halfling’s suspicious questions were not something he wanted to deal with just now while he was distracted with worry. And he did not want to be discussing his personal relationships at all, least of all with someone who apparently had _files_ on him.

He tried not to think of his recent actions as abandoning his friends. It was an irrational notion, he knew it even as he thought it. Salda and the children had needed his aid far more than a group of seasoned adventurers would have. They would have gotten away.

_Surely_ they would have gotten away.

It was one thing to lose the potential for his relationship with Vax to be anything more than friendship. He was all right with that, or at least he told himself that he would be all right with that given some time. But the thought of losing him entirely…

Oh, Vax, that darling boy. He thought back to their first meeting, Vax just another scruffy adventurer in a group of scruffy adventurers, trying to score a deal by being as charming as possible. Gilmore had seen through it, of course, but he had let himself be charmed in spite of himself, because there was just something about him. And Vax and his friends had kept coming back, and they had begun to talk about things other than just merchandise…

It might have seemed surprising to anyone who only saw the flamboyant, gregarious exterior, but Gilmore didn’t have much of a love life and hadn’t for some time. He didn’t care for casual affairs, but lacked the time to cultivate serious attachments, which left him with little other than the superficial flirtation that was just a part of his showy persona. He kept so much of himself behind the veil of his salesman’s smile that he didn’t even have many close friends. Plenty of acquaintances, yes, but very few people really _knew_ him.

Also, it was hard to think of excuses for why a man in his line of work should have combat scars under his clothing, not all of them old.

It had been fine, though. He was a man confident in himself, happy with his life, essentially married to his work. Vax had gotten under his skin so gradually that he hadn’t even noticed it. He had just been a cute customer who played a good game of helping his sister wheedle discounts out of him, until he became a friend, until his adventures started wearing the rough edges off of him and revealing a more serious, thoughtful side, until they started confiding in each other, until Gilmore realized that he couldn’t even remember the last time he had noticed any other pretty face, until hearing that Vax was dropping by to see him could bring him teleporting in from halfway across the continent on a whim just to say hi and spend a few minutes catching up.

Until he might be dead, or out there running headlong into hell itself right now.

_Not helping. Focus._

When they finally made their way through to his section of Abadar’s Promenade, his heart nearly stopped. Something had crashed into the bazaar near his shop, destroying tents and carts and buildings alike. One of the dragons, or perhaps one of the burning chunks of the palace that the enormous red one had been throwing over the walls.

Fearing the worst, he pressed on. But thank all the gods, Gilmore’s itself looked relatively untouched. Some of the draperies on the front of his shop were burning, but that didn’t concern him much. He was more worried about the hole smashed through the front window. But the place looked intact, at least for now. “In here,” he said, and led the way through the door.

He ran headlong into Sherri, who shrieked in alarm before realizing it was him. “Oh thank god!” she exclaimed. “What is going on out there?”

Gilmore caught her arm to steady her. “Sherri, I’m certain I told you to go below immediately and stay there,” he said severely. “What are you still doing up here?”

Her chin lifted and she seemed to regain some of her usual prim demeanor. “I couldn’t very well let the place burn down before you even got here,” she said, looking over her shoulder.

He followed her gaze to where a blackened mess of wood lay twisted in the smashed remains of a display case. It was big, maybe a piece of a cart, and it still sizzled faintly, though it had a large damp patch around it. That must have been what had come through the window, he realized. “My god, are you all right?” he asked, looking her up and down. “If that had hit you—”

“We don’t have time for this,” said Tofor. “Where is the family?”

The paladin was rude, but she had a point. After another glance satisfied him that his assistant looked soot-stained and slightly scorched but not seriously injured, he let her go and made his way through the beaded curtain that cordoned off his private quarters. The hatch on the floor was already open. “In there,” he said, glancing at Sherri for confirmation. “Right?”

“Yes,” she said. “Or at least, Lady Salda and the three children are in there. The Sovereign didn’t come through. Was he supposed to?”

“No, they’re the only ones I sent,” he said, as Tofor pushed past them and immediately started climbing down the ladder. “Uriel wouldn’t come.”

“What is _happening_ out there?” Sherri asked. “You said an attack. Who is attacking us?”

“Dragons,” he said. “Huge chromatic dragons. Three, maybe four of them, all different colours.”

She stared at him. “But… why? How?”

“I’m certain I don’t know.” He pointed to the opening. “You get down there too, my dear, and make sure you close the hatch. That room has the best protections money can buy but the door needs to be shut for all of them to be fully active. Stay there and keep the family safe until I return.”

“What about you?”

Gilmore shook his head. “I need to go back.” He looked around the room, trying to spot anything that might be useful.

“Have you lost your mind?” she demanded. “You said there are _dragons_ out there!”

“Yes, and so is Vox Machina. I didn’t see them get out.” They must not have seen him get out either. What if they were still there looking for him?

“To be fair,” Asum cut in, “it seems that all but the red one have flown off again.”

“So only one huge chromatic dragon, that makes it _so_ much better,” Sherri said. “Gilmore, I don’t know what happened between you and him the other night, but I know damn well he isn’t worth throwing your life away!”

“I’m not a lovestruck idiot, Sherri,” Gilmore snapped.

“Could have fooled me,” she murmured, not quite under her breath.

Gilmore took a deep breath, forcibly getting hold of his temper. “This isn’t about me and Vax,” he said, and realized it was at least mostly true. “This is about my friends and allies and my Sovereign out there in danger and me maybe being able to help them get to safety. I’m not going to go pick a fight with a dragon, I’m going to be careful. But you’re not going to talk me out of trying to help.”

Sherri scrubbed a hand across her face, angrily dashing tears away and leaving sooty marks across her cheeks. “Fine,” she said, and thrust a small satchel into his arms. “Make—make sure you mark these out of inventory if you use them.” Her voice was barely more than a choked sob by the time she finished. She gave him one more glare, then hurried down the ladder.

This left him alone with Seeker Asum. “She’s right, you know,” said the halfling. “I doubt Tofor and I will be staying here long once we’ve seen to the royal family, but you needn’t be putting yourself in further danger. Your quick thinking may have saved Salda and the children, but you’ve done enough.”

A crash sounded nearby, rattling everything on the shelves. Gilmore just shrugged. “No, I need to go back. I need to find them.” He opened the satchel and couldn’t help smiling. A potion of fire resistance and a handful of healing potions. He needed to give that woman a raise, bless her, as aggravating as she could be sometimes.

“Your devotion to your friends does both yourself and them credit,” said Asum. “But you did see the size of that… creature, did you not?”

Gilmore shrugged again. “All the more reason to see if they need my help. I doubt they would have perished in the initial strike. But they have a habit of running headlong into danger.”

“You really intend—yes, you really do, don’t you.” The Master of Secrets was shaking his head slowly as he stared at him. “You know, all I ever saw when investigating you was an eccentric dandy obsessed with the latest business opportunity. You are very, very good. When all this is over if we both survive you and I are going to have _words._ You’re lucky that you’ve done the crown a service and I have bigger issues to deal with just now. But I want to know who you work for. Are you reporting to Ank’Harel?”

Good grief, the man thought he was a _spy?_ The thought was so silly it broke his darkened mood. “Work for?” Gilmore said with his best smile. “Didn’t you see the sign on the door with my name on it?” He gave the halfling a wink as he downed the fire resistance potion. “My dear fellow, I _am_ an eccentric dandy obsessed with the latest business opportunity. That’s not a front, that’s who I am.”

Asum’s mouth turned up at one corner. “We can talk about your _hobbies,_ then,” he said. He reached out, clapped Gilmore on the arm, and muttered a brief incantation. The sting of the burn on Gilmore’s neck faded. “Good luck. I hope one of us finds Uriel. And I hope you find your young man and the others as well. Reckless, yes, I’ve noticed that too, but at least they seem pretty good at getting out of danger again in my experience.”

“I hope so,” Gilmore said, then hurried out of the shop before Asum could say or ask anything more or decide to arrest him or something after all, suspicious little bastard that he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you present yourself in public as a jovial salesman who might be a competent mage but is primarily interested in commerce, and then you put on your serious face and suddenly out yourself as a total badass in front of the head of intelligence who thought he had you filed under 'close associate of Vox Machina, looks clean, not otherwise of interest,' yeah, he might jump to some conclusions.
> 
> I like to think that when they finally do meet up again later, they end up going for drinks together and having a good laugh about it.


	5. The Search

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: This chapter gets a little dark. Gilmore sees dead people, quite a few of them. I'm not going for gratuitous levels of explicit detail, but I thought it important to show the human cost given this is an attack on a civilian population centre. Gilmore, unlike Vox Machina, has lived in Emon for years and is deeply established in the community, so what is upsetting to them is devastating to him.

He gave himself an hour.

That was how long the potion would last, and if he didn’t find them by then, he wasn’t going to. An hour to look for his friends and the Sovereign and try not to get eaten by dragons. He could do that.

At least, he hoped he could. For all his words of breezy confidence to Sherri and Asum, he knew how far out of his depth he was.

Another giant chunk of masonry had hit the bazaar while he had been in the shop, tearing another swath through the tents and stalls and setting more fires. If one of those came down on top of his shop… Well, then he would find out if those protections on the basement had been worth the money and effort.

On his first trip through the area, he had been too intent on his immediate worries to have noticed the merchants and customers who had been taken by surprise in the initial attack, or killed by the flying wreckage as they tried to rescue their wares in the aftermath. Now he saw them, lying broken and still in the light of the fires. All around him, his neighbours and friends frantically called out for missing loved ones, or cried in dismay at finding them fallen. He tried to stay focused on his own task, tried not to see the ruin of so many lives and livelihoods of people he knew, but it was hard.

Halfway through the bazaar he spotted Daric Lane, the son of his favourite local tea vendor, a cheerful and inquisitive eleven year old who had been hanging around Gilmore’s shop ever since he had been old enough to slip away from his mother. He had always been fascinated by all things magical, watching the staff work, asking questions, thrilled to be allowed to help with small tasks or errands. “Uncle Gil” had seen a wizard in the making and had been sponsoring his education for years now.

He would no longer be needing that sponsorship.

Gilmore somehow made it out of the bazaar and found himself in an alleyway, leaning against a wall, shaking all over, trying not to be sick. He wanted to scream, to weep, to crawl into a hole and wait for it all to be over. But he didn’t have the luxury of falling apart. His fire resistance would only last so long, and he had people to find who might still need him. Help now, hurt later.

It took a couple of tries, but he managed to force himself back into a semblance of calm. A lifetime of arcane pursuits had made him accustomed to pushing his mind into altered states quickly, and this mental discipline let him erect a temporary wall between himself and the full force of his emotions. It was a tenuous thing, but it let him get up and keep going.

He got his bearings and headed back towards the Cloudtop District. After his blind flight from the bazaar he was a few streets over from the earlier route he had taken with the council members, but not far out of his way. Everywhere he passed in this section of town, it seemed at least one building on every block was damaged or on fire, and the streets were full of panicking people. A few were trying to organize bucket chains, but with burning debris still coming down periodically around them this struck Gilmore as unlikely to do much good.

When he reached the district, he saw the gates still standing open and unguarded. In fact one of the doors was off its hinges just propped against the wall, and there were people leaving the district in a surprisingly orderly manner. As he approached, one of the people coming out eyed him. “Oi, you,” he said. “Back already? Where’s the stuff? What have you got?”

Gilmore frowned. “Stuff?”

“Yes, the stuff,” the man repeated. He was middle aged, wearing clothing that was plain but well made. “For _Him_ of course. The Cinder King.” His eyes narrowed. “What are you here for, otherwise?”

“Never mind,” Gilmore said. “I just needed to check something. About the stuff.” He turned around and headed away, casting invisibility on himself as soon as he was out of sight so he wouldn’t have to deal with any more of this. He should have been paying more attention to stealth already, he realized, but better late than never.

Gods, he was getting too old for this. No, he had probably _always_ been too old for this. There was a world of difference between dabbling in combat and intrigue in his spare time and running around in an actual war zone.

He slipped past the opportunists and through the open gate. It was quieter here now than in the main part of the city, other than the crackle of fires and the occasional boom of the dragon’s voice. He supposed that anyone trying to flee would have already fled, leaving just the dead and the—willing.

He told himself he couldn’t blame people for just doing what they felt they had to in order to survive. But really, this quickly? It had been less than an _hour_ since the attack and already the dragon had lackeys gathering tribute.

He edged towards the square to see if it was safe to enter yet. Apparently it was, because in the firelight he could see that there were people there now, bending down and tending to the fallen.

No, not tending to the fallen. Looting the bodies. He could see the creature—Thordak, he had now heard the name—sitting in part of the increasingly demolished palace that was apparently being turned into a courtyard for his new lair. The scavengers were bringing their finds in that direction.

A stab of rage threatened to break through his mask of self-control. He wasn’t one of the real elite of Emon, but he was a prominent enough businessman and well connected enough in the arcane community to brush shoulders with them. He probably knew at least a quarter of the corpses there by name, and far more by sight. He had been standing and chatting with them an hour ago. They hadn’t all been people he liked, but none of them deserved to be picked over like this.

_See to the living now. Worry about the dead later._ He supposed that was what these people were doing too, in their own way.

He crept into the square and headed first towards where the stage had been, looking for any sign of his friends or the Sovereign. No sign of them, and he wasn’t able to get too close without disturbing enough debris to reveal his presence, but under the wreckage of the stage he did see a pair of legs sticking out. He was sure the body was wearing the armour of Arbiter Brom Goldhand of the council. _Damn._

Carefully, avoiding the looters as much as possible, he made it to where he thought he remembered Vox Machina standing and was glad not to see any trace of them. Where would they have gone from here? There were some trees near the far end of the square opposite the stage. Had any of them been appropriate ones for Keyleth to have used with her plant-based teleportation spell? That would have let them make a nearly immediate escape.

The trees were splintered and charred now, he found when he got there. They certainly wouldn’t be usable now, but it was entirely possible they could have been earlier in the evening. Once again he looked around for any sign that his friends had ever been here.

The best he could tell was that their bodies weren’t here and he couldn’t see anything that they had dropped. Good enough. But better check the dragon’s court in case they were trying to do something subtle. Subtle and Vox Machina didn’t go together very well.

He kept going, now hugging the edges of the square, headed towards the place where the looters were dropping off their finds. Not everyone was dead here, he found. A few people had been hit by falling debris or overcome by smoke rather than the green dragon’s deadly breath, and he used most of his small supply of healing potions tending to them. They came to consciousness and looked around, puzzled at being unable to see the helper who told them to go as quietly as they could through the district to any gate that seemed less busy than the ones nearest the square. It was small aid, but perhaps they would live at least through the night now.

As he crossed one of the side streets, he caught a glimpse of red and gold among the tumbled ruins of what had recently been a beautiful marble archway. Heart sinking, he went closer to investigate. This time he didn’t have to worry about revealing his presence by shifting the rubble. Not only was there no one in the immediate area, the looters had already cleared the way.

_Oh no no no no._

Sovereign Uriel’s headless, mangled remains lay in the middle of the bodies of his personal guard, now stripped of their armour and weapons. This had not been the work of the poison breath or the falling masonry: based on the savage, charred wounds, this had been Thordak himself taking a personal interest in ensuring that his takeover of the kingdom was complete.

Gilmore couldn’t stop the tears from coming anymore. Uriel had perhaps not been the strongest or wisest of rulers, but he had tried. Right up to the end, he had tried. He had known that staying in the square to rally the evacuation would most likely lead to his death, Gilmore had seen it in his face. But he had chosen to stay anyway because he had seen it as his responsibility to his people.

_I could have saved you. Dammit, I could have_ saved _you, if only you had let me._

He knew there was nothing he could have said or done to make Uriel come with him. The man had decided he had a duty. And if Gilmore had stayed longer to argue, they would have all been caught in the green dragon’s arrival and attack. But he couldn’t help feeling like he had failed his sovereign, failed his city, failed the family now waiting in his basement.

Salda would have understood her husband’s chances for survival. From what he had seen on _her_ face, only the need to get the children to safety had prevented her from staying at his side until the end. Still, Gilmore didn’t look forward to breaking the news to her that not only had Uriel fallen, there wasn’t even enough of him left intact to try to resurrect.

And that wasn’t all the fault of the dragon and the falling rocks, either. In their zeal to strip absolutely every bit of jewelry and ornamentation, whoever had despoiled the corpse had even hacked some of his fingers away to get his rings off.

His damned _fingers._

Gilmore wasn’t a particularly religious man, but he whispered a prayer for the peaceful repose of souls that he remembered from his childhood. It was the only thing he had left to offer. Then he turned back and kept going.

He probably had less than fifteen minutes left on his fire resistance by now, but he didn’t dare rush. Could ancient red dragons see through invisibility? Even if normal ones couldn’t, how about ridiculously oversized whatever kind of category this one was? He left the invisibility up to avoid the notice of his fellow humanoids, but decided he had still better not take any chances. Too bad that sneaky bastard Asum wasn’t still here with that stealth spell of his.

He crept along next to the line of supplicants to where the ruined gates to the palace turned into a roofless shell. Plenty of the palace behind the former throne room was as yet unscathed, but this entrance hall had already been razed into a courtyard with only the exterior walls standing. Thordak sat in monstrous splendour at the far end of the hall, inspecting the shiny objects as they were laid at his feet.

“More, more!” the beast said. “If you wish you live, you must serve, you must bring suitable tribute!”

There were citizens all along the edges of the courtyard, on their knees before their new lord. Gilmore recognized a number of them, notable citizens, soldiers, nobles, bankers, merchants. Those in line brought their treasures and pledged their loyalty. Some joined the kneeling crowd. Others were sent away to fetch more wealth. Periodically Thordak tore another chunk out of the palace and threw it out over the city with a roar.

Gilmore’s eyes blurred again with tears when he saw Uriel’s head mounted on a pike near the beginning of the treasure pile. The supplicants had to pass by it to lay their loot down. Some stared. Most looked away.

_They are just trying to survive. What other choice do they have, but to cower before the mighty and wait for something mightier to liberate them? Don_ _’t blame them. Save your blame for the dragons._

He wasn’t here to be that liberation. As much as this scene appalled him, he couldn’t get carried away. He just had to see if his friends had tried to sneak their way into Thordak’s court, and get them out if need be, or get himself out if not. He didn’t need to get any closer than this. He stayed almost perfectly still, concealed behind a bit of crumbled wall, scanning the crowd for his friends.

They weren’t here. It appeared that he was the more reckless one for once.

Where should he try next? Their keep, of course. He had never been to it, but he had been invited and he knew where it was. If they were there, he could let them know about Uriel and the council. Maybe bring them back to his place to help with Salda and the children. And if they weren’t there, and no one had heard from them… He would go home, and keep looking in the morning.

Just as he was preparing to dimension door out of the district, he heard fresh screams.

Thordak heard them too, and whipped his head around. “What is this?” he boomed, then let out a mad cackle. “Ahh, more sport!”

The dragon jumped up into the air and came back down with a resounding thud on the other side of the wall, back in the square. Gilmore, here at the threshold, could see what had caught his attention, and he crept back out to get a better look: a group of some half dozen or so survivors had apparently no longer been able to remain in their hiding place as it burned down around them.

When the dragon came down nearly on top of their heads, they screamed again and ran the other way, towards the gate. Thordak grinned and pounced in front of them, laughing wildly, driving them back. He let them get almost to the next gate before pouncing again.

The desperate citizens were already tiring, stumbling and coughing in their terrified flight back and forth, and their cries for mercy or assistance were growing fainter.

No one made a move to help them.

The scavengers simply moved out of the way towards the other side of the square to keep from being trampled underfoot and continued their grisly work detail. Vox Machina would have done something to stand against this wanton cruelty, but Vox Machina wasn’t here. Uriel was dead, the surviving members of the council were scattered, and most of the upper echelons of Emon society were either dead or cowering on their knees before their new master. There was no one here left to help the helpless.

No one but him.

Shaun Gilmore was not a hero. He was not even an adventurer. He might like to moonlight as one a little, taking on small missions of his own choosing, but that didn’t give him experience facing threats on anything near this kind of scale. He was a shopkeeper pushing closer to middle age than he preferred to admit, with a fondness for good wine and fine clothing, his physique more comfortably padded than toned. A dandy, Asum had called him.

But he was a sorcerer whose considerable innate gifts had been honed by decades of relentless practice and experimentation into something few arcane practitioners of any type could match, and he was here, and he had gone out today equipped for battle. If he slunk away now without doing anything to help, he would be far more cowardly than the ones who knelt before the beast because it was the only means of self-preservation they knew.

To hell with that. He wasn’t about to sit idly by while some giant overgrown fucking _lizard_ laid waste to his town and laughed at the terror it was causing.

These people didn’t need a hero right now. They just needed a distraction. And if there was anything Gilmore was good at, it was putting on a show.

_Sorry, Sherri,_ he thought. _I guess I_ _’m picking a fight after all._

He needed to get some height, so that when the dragon struck back at him it wouldn’t hit anyone else. He selected the roof of a building next to the palace that somehow did not seem to be burning yet, and blinked up onto it in a single step.

His face was still wet with tears, but all he felt now was a cold resolve, and his hands were steady as he dropped his invisibility, pulled the lightning wand from its holster, took careful aim, and fired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have read a couple of other fanfics based on the events of these episodes, and in them the dragon just discovers Gilmore and attacks. I decided I wanted to make it Gilmore's choice to get involved, because giving him agency seemed a better culmination of his journey up to this point in the story, and because defending others heedless of the cost to himself is kind of how he rolls. I don't think it's actually established in canon who actually started the "duel," just that they had one and that his only experience of combat at that scale was him trying to get away (which still ends up being the case here, as you'll see next chapter).


	6. The Duel

The bolt struck true, crackling up the creature’s flank, flaring. Then Thordak seemed to shrug off part of the effect and the light faded. Time stood still for a moment.

Then the great beast whipped his head around. “Who _dares?!_ _”_ he roared.

 _Well, you_ _’re committed now,_ Gilmore thought, and lit himself up.

Like many other practitioners, when Gilmore normally did magic, his eyes and hands tended to give off arcane sparks. Technically it was a slight bit of power inefficiency, but he preferred to think of it as a flourish. After all, if he was going to make something amazing happen, there was no reason for it not to _look_ amazing as well.

Now he turned the flourish up, improvising it into something full blown rather than a side effect. His robes billowed out, releasing a cloud of golden sparkles that settled into a nimbus surrounding him, and his eyes flashed. Streamers of purple, blue, and pink light trailed from his hands and swirled all around him. Little bolts of power crackled out from his entire body.

 _Eyes on me,_ the spell said, infused with all the panache and self-confidence he possessed. _Nothing can possibly_ _compete for your attention with how incredibly fucking_ glorious _I am._ It was essentially a visual manifestation of how he felt every time he cast a spell or made a good sales pitch, so maybe it was less an illusion and more an unveiling.

As the magic in his blood surged through him in an endorphin-laced rush, he decided that if he survived and had occasion to codify this into a real spell he would dub it Gilmore’s Glorious Glitterstorm.

“Hey, big red and ugly!” he shouted, amplifying his voice as well. “Want another?” He raised his wand and fired again, then misty-stepped out of the way of the descending claw attack to the next roof over.

“Go go go,” he urged the harried survivors under his breath, but he had little attention to spare to check if they were taking advantage of their reprieve. Thordak’s strike on his former standing place had caused part of the building to collapse. This was a dance with death itself, and he was going to have to be both very careful and very lucky if he wanted to make it out alive.

“Slippery little morsel,” the dragon snarled, eyes narrowing as he spotted Gilmore’s glowing form again. Then he laughed. “At least you give better sport than most of these cattle.” He lunged at him, teeth bared.

Once again Gilmore was no longer there. “Nice try!” he taunted from another nearby building.

There was no sense in trying to actually hurt the beast. This was strictly for buying time. Sting him with the wand to keep his attention. Save all his arcane reserves for mobility and survival. Stay high. Move just far enough to keep out of range, but not far enough to make the dragon charge around crushing people. Look impressive as hell, and try not to die. No problem, right?

The dragon was reared back on his hindquarters now to strike out at him, turning this way and that, and—

What was that? There was something _pulsing_ on the dragon’s chest. A trick of the light, maybe?

His next warp took him higher still, up to an as yet undamaged tower of the palace. No more taunts, as he had no breath to spare now for anything other than incantations and a hissing stream of Marquesian curses he had forgotten he’d even known. Funny how in moments of crisis the mind returned to such things.

He risked a quick glance down and was pretty sure he saw people running for the gates. Good. He turned his attention back to Thordak. Yes, there was definitely something on the enormous creature’s chest. It was shiny and crystalline. An ornament? Something lodged there? It was hard to tell. As the dragon’s face came near, he loosed another lightning bolt from the wand right at its nose.

Unfortunately that was a mistake. The bolt hit solidly, and while Thordak once again seemed to shrug off part of the damage, the energy crackled up his snout to his eyes and clearly stung. But it also made the dragon sneeze out a blast of fire breath right at him, blowing him off the roof of the tower.

_Shitshitshit_

Sherri’s potion probably saved his life, because he felt only moderately scorched, but he lost concentration on his glitterstorm effect as he landed heavily on another roof a dozen feet or so below. He groaned, rolled, and dropped down another level.

“I grow weary of this game, little morsel,” the dragon growled.

Slightly dazed, Gilmore didn’t think he could properly judge where he was in space in relation to where he wanted to send himself. Not a good state of mind for any kind of teleportation. But staying still would be lethal. He tried to scramble to his feet and his leg buckled. Definitely not good, not good at all. He had partial cover from the upper towers above him and didn’t think Thordak had spotted exactly where he had landed yet, but that wouldn’t be the case for long.

Desperate, he tried reigniting his glitterstorm, not around himself this time but in the vicinity of the building he could see across the way. _Oh gods please let this work._

Amazingly, it did. During daylight it probably wouldn’t have even been worth trying, but right now it seemed that ‘annoying glowy thing’ was all the target Thordak was bothering to look for. The Cinder King spun and snapped at the swirling lights, giving Gilmore the chance to gulp down his last healing potion. He’d saved the strongest one and he was glad he had.

His head cleared, the pain in his leg faded, and the burns receded a bit. This was the right time to make his escape, he decided as he regained his feet. He had bought the people in the square precious time and there wasn’t likely to be a better opportunity to get out than now. Time to dimension door as far as he could away from this place, take a few deep breaths, and head home.

He had been watching Thordak’s head as the dragon angrily realized that the glitterstorm was just an illusion. He hadn’t been watching the tail lashing out towards his location.

It didn’t hit him, but it smashed into the structure just below him. His roof began to buckle and crumble, and this time there were no more convenient lower levels to break his fall. He scrambled to grab on to something, but had no luck.

If he didn’t want to go splat, he was going to have to do something creative quickly. He wouldn’t be able to blink out before he started falling in earnest, and teleporting while moving quickly tended to go poorly due to the way momentum carried through.

Then again, maybe he could use that to his advantage. He looked around, madly working out how to change the output angle on his destination. He was good with travel spells. Was he good enough?

The dimension door caught him just before he would have hit the ground and popped him back out into the air going almost straight up. _Yes!_ he exulted, flailing his limbs wildly to right himself. Still alive, for now. He shed speed as he rose, and he hurried to get his bearings. There was an open balcony in misty step range. All he had to do was time the spell completion for the top of his arc and he would arrive without momentum making him crash into anything. He could slip inside, catch his breath, and teleport out. Never mind taking an extra step to dimension door out of the square since he was no longer sure what direction he was facing. Just a straight teleport, no wasting time on a circle, this would have to be the quick, highly power intensive full version. But he could do it, go straight home, and see if he’d left any alcohol in his basement because _oh god_ was he ever going to need a drink after this—

A huge limb swiped him out of the air and onto the slope of a turret. “Enough,” the dragon snarled, pinning him between his talons.

 _Well, that was almost fun while it lasted,_ he thought to himself as the pain seared across his middle.

Thordak bent down over him, bathing him in hot brimstone breath. “You stink of the desert, little morsel,” the Cinder King said after a moment. Gilmore stared up into eyes bigger than his head. If he survived this he was going to be seeing those mad eyes in his nightmares for years, gleaming with malice and contempt. “You should have stayed there.”

 _Thank all the gods for an enemy that wants to grandstand,_ Gilmore thought. Every second the dragon kept talking was another chance for both himself and the other survivors to make an escape. He hoped they were running like hell, because there was nothing more he could do for them now. Couldn’t do much for himself either while he was pinned like this, because he thought one of those claws might still be buried in his belly, but if he could just make the creature let go for a moment…

“I did not think to taste one of Devo’ssa’s wretched little pets so soon,” the dragon continued. “But this is a suitable way to celebrate the start of my rule. You will not be the last of that one’s cattle to fall.”

And then the claws were gone but the teeth were on him. It was a burning hot pain, but even as he screamed he realized that the dragon was still toying with him, drawing out his death, intending to enjoy his suffering, because the bite just raked across his shoulder and chest instead of snapping something vital.

One more chance, then. _You shouldn_ _’t play with your food,_ he thought, baring his teeth as he clamped down on his scream. _It might just bite back._ Could he shift his hand just slightly into position? Yes, he could.

He took his pain, his rage, his grief, and poured them into what he was casting. He didn’t want to die here, and he still didn’t intend to die here, but if this was going to be _it_ he was damn well going to make it count. For Uriel. For Salda and Odessa and Illiya and Gren. For Sherri. For little Daric, who would never grow up to be a wizard. For Vax, wherever he and his friends were. For the terrified survivors trying to flee.

For all of Emon.

The Disintegrate took the beast right in the face, obliterating a few teeth into dust, carving a line up the side of his jaw, and gouging a chunk out of his ear. It might even have done some damage to the wing and shoulder as it streaked out from Gilmore’s outstretched finger and past the head, but that was impossible to see as the dragon reared up in outrage with a deafening roar, releasing him from his jaws.

In that moment, Gilmore got one last good look at the pulsing red thing on Thordak’s chest and tried to fix its details into his mind, but he knew he had to act now if he was to have any chance of survival.

He still had enough in him for a full power instant teleport. All that took was sheer force of will and expertise, which was good, because shock was setting in fast and his body was starting to go numb. It would take absolutely everything he had left, but he _did_ have enough left (he hoped, trusted, prayed).

The only thing he could feel now of the wound in his belly was a wrenching feeling of _wrongness_ and that had to be a bad sign. But if he could get home, then Sherri might be able to stabilize him. Or at least scrape up his remains and take them to a cleric. That was as much as he dared hope now.

Was the world wobbling, or was he slipping off the roof?

Probably slipping, but he couldn’t afford to think about that right now. There was a monster above him, flame already building up around its mouth, and once that head whipped back down towards him there would be no more last desperate chances. The fire would take him and leave nothing but ash, and no one would ever even find a body.

His vision was going grey around the edges, but the connection to his destination snapped into place and all he had to do now was speak the final words…

He felt himself fall, but whether he was going to slam into the ground in the Cloudtop district or he had merely tumbled out of his sigil after a successful teleport, he didn’t know.


	7. Interlude: The Dream

He thought he heard voices, but he could not be sure.

Pain faded.

Fear faded.

All sense of time or space faded.

His life stretched away from him, drawing thinner and thinner into a single long line whose ends were lost in a great eternal vastness. If he chose, he could examine that thread and see everything he had been and done. Looking at himself from the outside, he was pleased to note that, for the most part, he didn’t have too many regrets.

And looking at those last moments in particular, it figured that in spite of all his attempts to be mostly respectable his whole life, he should have finally given in to the song of the magic in his blood calling him to battle, and gone out doing something totally ridiculous.

Sorcery was a hell of a drug. Those who got their magic from the outside probably didn’t wake up buzzing with the need to create, destroy, move, bend reality to their will. It ran through his veins and it was _beautiful_ and it demanded to be _used._

It would also drive him mad with power if he wasn’t careful, so he channeled it into his life’s work. And when that wasn’t enough, he became his alter ego and found another kind of challenge, deliberately limited in scope, telling himself he was just doing quality control on his merchandise and performing a bit of anonymous public service.

He’d never wanted to be a real combat mage. He wanted to be admired, not feared. But in the end he’d always figured he would die in battle with a spell on his lips. There was only so much a sorcerer could do to deny the call of his blood.

Eventually he realized that he wasn’t the only one taking notice of the thread of his life.

And after what might have been an instant or an eon, it occurred to him that he ought to be polite and say something. “Is this it, then?” he asked.

He got a fleeting glimpse of a pale, unnaturally still face. _You stand upon the threshold._

It wasn’t exactly a voice, because his perception had nothing to do with his sense of hearing. But it was low, soft, and feminine, possessed of an immensity that would have been terrifying if he could have felt fear at all here in whatever place or state this was.

He looked for the face again, and he could feel his thread pulling a little thinner yet as he stretched out and found it. There she was, dark and transcendent, wearing a serene mask of white porcelain.

“So what’s next?” he asked.

_I have dominion only over the moment of passage itself,_ the goddess said, drawing nearer _. What happens next is not for Me to decide. You linger here on the very brink, for now._

Well, no sense in being anything other than himself. “If I had known I was going to be going on an extended date with You, Lady, I would have thought to bring us some wine.”

There was no change in either the alien face or the silent non-voice, but he got an impression of amusement. _You are gallant, colorful one. Perhaps another time._

A golden warmth washed over him, then passed, and the face dissolved into dark wings that fluttered all around him, brushing his face with feathers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Given how wrecked Gilmore is portrayed as being even after his healing (it's more like a post-resurrection state than just being brought from unconsciousness to 70hp) I thought it would be fun to put him _literally_ on death's doorstep, since in-universe death's doorstep has an actual Guardian who appears in the game. Although whether what he is seeing is real or just a fever dream is up to interpretation.
> 
> And yes, of _course_ Gilmore would insist on being as charming as possible, even to a god.


	8. The Awakening

With returning awareness came returning pain. It wasn’t the hot, urgent awfulness of the dragon’s jaws upon him, but rather a bone-deep ache and weariness that permeated every fiber of his being. _If this is the afterlife,_ he thought, _I_ _’m in for a rather shitty eternity._ He let out a feeble cough, and oh yes, there was the agony, a great shuddering spasm of it, oh _gods_ _…_

Then he felt arms tighten around him and realized he was not alone. Something warm was brushing against his face, like the feathers of the Lady in the strange vision that was already fading from his mind. He let his eyes drift open and saw a blurred image of dark wings framing a pale face, coming slowly into focus into a beautiful, hauntingly familiar angel of death, hovering over him and… weeping?

 _Vax_ _’ildan._ The name swam up into his fuzzy consciousness, and he found his mouth quirking itself into a tired, instinctive smile. It seemed somehow fitting that this creature should look like Vax. “Well,” he managed, “that’s always what I assumed I’d see in my last moments.”

That had an effect on the lovely image, although he was not sure whether it was a chuckle or a sob. “Bad day, huh,” said the angel, and oh what a lovely mercy, he even sounded like Vax, although Gilmore had never heard the real Vax use a tone of such brokenhearted fondness.

Gilmore considered the question. He might be dead, but he had died to save people, and he was pretty sure he had at least given Thordak something to remember him by. And he might be sore and cold, but if the afterlife consisted of being sore and cold and cradled in the arms of someone as beautiful as this, he couldn’t really complain. “Strangely enough, I’m pretty sure I’ve had worse.”

Another familiar voice now. “No offense, darling, but you look like shit.”

Gilmore chuckled, and it hurt slightly less than the cough, but only slightly. Still, “Can’t have that, can we?” he said, and lifted a hand to give himself a little once-over. But other than a few fizzling sparks and a sudden dizzying pain in his head, nothing happened.

As the spell failed, full lucidity finally arrived, and he realized that the being who had gathered him into his arms didn’t just look like Vax’ildan, it _was_ Vax’ildan. Not some angel of death. The haunting impression of dark wings and feathers was just a trick of the light and the angle and his delirium.

It wasn’t just Vax, either. Vex, who had been the one to tell him he looked like shit, was there too, pulling his hand down as if he had been a small child reaching for a hot stove. Keyleth was there, telling him he had to rest, as Vax murmured, “Give it time, give it time.” All of Vox Machina was there, in fact, and Sherri, and Salda and the children, and a half-orc that he didn’t recognize. Was this his safe room?

A terrible thought gripped him as he thought of the certainty he’d had upon awakening that this was actually the afterlife. “So… either we’re all dead or we’re all alive,” he said, looking from one face to another. “I’d like an answer.”

“Alive,” said Vex cheerfully.

The sudden fear dissolved. “Good, I was hoping you’d say that,” said Gilmore, and collapsed back against Vax with a sigh. His friend eased him into a more comfortable position and he reclined there in blissful relief, breathing in the blessedly ordinary scents of damp leather and battle sweat.

“I was so worried about you all,” he said, wanting to assure them that he had not in fact abandoned them. “I went back for you.”

If Gilmore had held any lingering doubts about the sincerity of Vax’s claim that his interest in him had been genuine, they would have been dispelled now. Was this even the same young man who had broken off their flirtation and then impudently kissed him goodbye just the other night? Vax was holding him as though he never wanted to let him go, one arm cradling him, the other gently stroking his hair and face, eyes never leaving him as the stricken look faded into profound tenderness.

It must have been a close call indeed.

The last of his internal barriers crumbled, and he knew he could no longer pretend to himself that he had not fallen _hard_ for this man. And a small selfish part of him considered that if he made the slightest move, if he so much as turned his head and leaned in just a little to offer the comfort that they both desperately wanted in this moment, his darling impulsive Vax’ildan would probably kiss him, and in their mutual vulnerability it wouldn’t be a goodbye this time, not if it happened right now…

It was a pity that the selfish part wasn’t just a little bigger, because he _really_ wanted that comfort, and waking up in Vax’s arms was something that he would like to try when he wasn’t too tired and grief-stricken and half-dead for it to be even remotely sexy.

But as he spoke of the devastation the dragons had wreaked upon his beloved city and its leadership, his own wants seemed so trivial. The world was burning around them. This was not the time for foolish shopkeepers to distract real heroes from their missions.

He didn’t want to look at Salda and the children when Vex asked him if he had seen Uriel fall. But he steeled himself and forced himself to meet the widow’s eyes and say as gently as he could, “I didn’t see him fall, but I went back, and I found him fallen.”

She didn’t look surprised, but the confirmation made her bow her head in grief as Gren and Illiya began to cry. Odessa just leaned her head miserably against her mother’s shoulder, clearly having already cried all the tears she had left in her.

Gilmore quickly moved on to how he had found the other council members (who indeed had gone back out shortly after he had) and searched for Vox Machina. But Vax’s murmured, “You certainly earned your name today,” rang hollow in his ears when he thought of all those he had failed to help.

He told them of the crowd kneeling before their new king, and tried hard not to condemn them. He told them of the anomaly on Thordak’s chest that he had noticed in their brief encounter. “I’ve never dueled a dragon before, I’ve dueled a dragon now,” he said, and couldn’t help laughing. Calling it a duel made it sound far less one sided than it had been, but he supposed it was technically true, and it did sound impressive as hell, even to himself.

The fact that he had escaped with his life even if only barely after going one on one with Thordak would probably give them a pretty good idea of the scope of his actual abilities, and that was fine. These were his friends, and in these desperate new times they ought to know his potential to them as an ally. Or what his potential would be if he made a full recovery, at least.

He eventually started to drag himself to his feet so they could head out. He barely had enough strength to move his limbs—dear gods, how close _had_ it been, if even after being healed significantly he still felt this awful?

Vax started helping him up, and Sherri rushed in on his other side as well. She had been hanging back while he spoke with the team, and now he could see that she had dried blood on her face, hands, and clothes. “Are you all right?” he asked her as she and Vax carefully maneuvered him between them to help him stand.

“I spent all night at your side trying to stop the bleeding and the fever and pouring every potion I had into you to very little avail,” she said coolly. “Once you look a little less pathetic, I’m going to bloody well kill you myself, Mister look-at-me-I-dueled-a-dragon.”

Gilmore grinned, relieved that the blood had been his and not hers. “Yeah, sorry about that,” he said, and attempted one of his usual expressive shrugs. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Ridiculous,” she said. But while her manner was stern, her arm around him was closer to a hug than a mere support.

Good old Sherri. “Thank you,” he said, and was pleased to see her eyes soften.

At this point Scanlan piped up, looking at him standing propped between the two half-elves. “Gilmore, before we go, one more crazy question,” he said. “You’re not a dragon, are you?”

Now _that_ was funny. “Oh, I wish I was,” he said. “That would have made this whole endeavor a little easier on my part.” He put on a conspiratorial grin. “But if you find a way for me to become a dragon, that would be _sexy._ _”_

Even Sherri laughed at that.

They started discussing plans as they helped him towards the hatch, where he was surprised to see water trickling in from above, and he learned that the half-orc stranger was a member of the Clasp. _Good thing I didn_ _’t explain just why Uriel decided to trust a random merchant with the safety of his family,_ he thought. He had foiled enough criminal dealings by that organization over the years that the Moonflower had quite the price on his head. It would have been terribly awkward to have accidentally unmasked himself to them now.


	9. The Ruins

He couldn’t climb the ladder, so they all helped haul him up through the opening from above and below until he emerged into the grey daylight and rain.

Wait. Why was he outside? This should be his back room. Where was his roof, his walls? Then he realized what he was looking at.

He had expected damage. He wasn’t prepared for his shop to be _gone._

It must have been a direct hit. Both his place and the ones on either side had been reduced to smoking piles of rubble, nothing but broken glass and splintered wood and tumbled bricks amid the masonry that had crashed into the building. He could barely make out where anything had even been, and all he could see of his merchandise was burned pages and broken scraps.

The little bit of strength he had gave way, and he sagged down onto a pile of loose bricks and stone. “My injuries,” he murmured.

Behind him, he could hear Sherri emerging as well and crying out in dismay, but he was beyond words, beyond any reaction other than stunned disbelief. Everything he had worked for, all of it, completely destroyed…

From a seemingly vast distance he heard a voice. “Gil… Gilmore… _Shaun_ _…”_

That snapped him back. As his vision cleared he found himself looking into a circle of worried faces. “Sorry,” he said, forcing a thin, brittle smile. “Had to catch my breath there for a moment.”

It was a painfully transparent excuse, but they allowed him to claim it, nodding and turning away to give him a moment and go back to their discussion of what to do next. All but Sherri, who was sitting on the same rubble pile with her arm around him, and Vax, who was crouching in front of him and holding both his hands. “We’ll make them pay,” he said in a low, dangerous tone. “I swear it. For all of this.”

Gilmore nodded. “I know.” Then, after a moment, “You know, no one’s called me by my given name in _years._ _”_

Vax looked away. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “You looked like you were going to faint. I was trying to get your attention.”

“It worked,” Gilmore said, and felt his face relax into a small but genuine smile. “I’m not mad. It just startled me. You never used it before, even after I said you could.”

Now Vax actually blushed. “Yeah,” he said, in a too-neutral tone. “I, uh, guess I had been kind of saving it for a special occasion.”

“Oh? _Oh._ _”_ Their eyes met again, and Gilmore was once again painfully conscious of how close to the tipping point they had been and still were in the aftermath of everything that had happened.

After a moment he gave Vax one of his crooked smiles. “Well,” he said, carefully keeping his tone light, “I think I’d say that after last night, just being alive counts as a special occasion, wouldn’t you?”

Vax gave a small relieved chuckle. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

Gilmore gently detached one of his hands and patted Vax on the arm. “So by all means, feel free to keep using it.” He gestured around at the rest of the group. “That goes for all of you, actually. Anyone who has saved my life has more than earned it.”

Vax smiled. “Thanks, Shaun.” He stood back up and returned to the group, which was in the midst of an argument over where to go next.

“Asshole,” Sherri muttered as Gilmore allowed himself a small sigh. He turned towards her, eyebrows raised. She was staring daggers at Vax’s retreating form, and gave a defiant shrug when she saw Gilmore’s look. “What? I mean really. Has he ever even _heard_ of boundaries?”

“Says the employee who is commenting on my love life and threatened to kill me a few minutes ago?”

“That’s different,” she said.

He waved at the surroundings, at the ruins of his life’s work smoldering in the freezing rain, at the grieving royal family, at his friends desperately trying to make plans to go up against inconceivably powerful enemies. “My dear, when it comes to my current state of heartbreak, his decision to pursue someone else isn’t even at the top of the list right now.”

She sighed, and stood up to start rummaging through the wreckage of his room. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. This isn’t the time. I just—you deserve better, is all.”

A thought occurred to him. “Sherri, are you jealous?”

She made an incredulous face. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said. “You’re not my type, and I’m _definitely_ not yours.”

“Oh. Good.”

“You’re my boss, is all. I have a vested interest in not wanting to be subjected to your relationship drama all day. Watching you pine is already getting tiresome.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, that weird halfling with the tattoos,” she went on. “He asked a lot of questions about you before he left.”

Oh, right, Asum. Damn. “Sorry,” he said. “What kind of questions?”

“Lots of things, but mostly your comings and goings, where you went in the evenings, that kind of thing,” she said. “I told him what you did in your own private time was none of my business and even more none of his. I think he thinks you’re some kind of foreign agent.”

“I may have accidentally given him that impression,” he admitted. “A little too competent under pressure for your average mild mannered merchant.”

She snorted. “You could never pass for mild mannered, Gilmore.”

He gave her a tired half-grin. “Well, perhaps not. But you know what I mean.”

“He was very interested in your safe room. When you’d built it and why. I said it was already there when I started working for you and as far as I knew it had come with the building. Was that all right? It seemed to make him feel better.”

“That was perfect,” he said. “I’m _not_ a spy, by the way. Just in case you were wondering.”

“Of course you’re not a spy,” she said. “I laughed in his face when I realized he was suggesting it.”

“Bless you,” he said. He looked over to the group, which seemed to be getting closer to a decision, then back at Sherri rummaging through the debris. “All right, this place is depressing me. Is there anything the looters missed? Papers, personal effects, anything?”

“Oh, I have the paperwork already,” she said, her face brightening. “Not everything of course. But when I got your message to go downstairs I brought the logbooks I was working on with me.” She raised her cloak and patted a satchel on her side and he realized it was one of their compact bags of holding. “Also when I was putting the fire out just before you came last night I did try to grab a few things for safekeeping. I couldn’t get much as there wasn’t time, but…”

“Darling, I could kiss you,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Not my type, remember,” she said, but she was smiling. “Not finding much here but I’ll show you what I’ve got when we arrive. I packed whatever clothes you had stored in the basement in the hopes that you would live long enough to wear them. You look dreadful, and I doubt wherever we’re going will carry a line of Gilmore-appropriate fashions.”

“Good,” he said, looking down at the scorched and tattered ruins of his new blue robe and realizing he ought to at least tie it back up. Gods, there was such a lot of blood caked into it, slowly washing away in the rain…

Sherri paused in her rummaging, watching him. “No, you didn’t die,” she said. “I think you were pretty much right on the edge. But you hadn’t quite gone all the way over by the time they showed up and Pike healed you.” She patted her pocket. “I did have a backup plan. But I’m glad it wasn’t necessary.”

Gilmore touched the fresh new skin on his torso through the gashes on his robe that even tying it more or less properly closed couldn’t fully cover. “Well, if this is what _mostly_ dead feels like, I don’t think I’ll be trying for the real thing any time soon.”

“Good,” she said. “Next time don’t go picking fights with dragons. You might not have any diamonds on hand for me to steal out of inventory for you.” She turned away from him and continued sifting through the remnants of his room.

Vax came back over to him. “I’m sorry about the delay,” he said, his expression stormy. “It’s gotten a little complicated.”

Gilmore got up and shuffled along with his help to where the rest of the group was gathered. Vex had the group’s bag of holding, and Scanlan and the half orc were standing next to her, while the others clustered around the royal family. “Do you all remember the last time I told you something was a terrible idea?” Keyleth was saying. “This is probably another one of those times.”

Vax had come up between the two groups and still stood there, looking disapproving and torn. “I’m sorry,” he said softly to Gilmore. “I don’t want to go.” Then he turned to his sister. “But I’m not leaving you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be pissy about it,” she said. “Gilmore, I’m going to get your shit back for you. All the shit that was looted.”

Ah, so the group was splitting up. “Thank you,” Gilmore said, trying to be gracious and let Vax know he didn’t need to feel bad. “I’m, uh, going to need it to renovate this place a little.” He gave a chuckle that turned into a cough. “I never even got to have a going out of business sale.”

“One night only, everything must go,” quipped Scanlan.

“Something like that,” Gilmore said.

Vax turned to Keyleth, then gently hoisted Gilmore into her arms. “Keep him safe, Kiki, please,” he said.

“This is a terrible idea…” Keyleth repeated as Percival came up on Gilmore’s other side to steady him.

Vax gave Gilmore one more long look. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sure it’s already long gone, but, well…”

“Your sister cannot abide the thought of treasure left behind,” Gilmore said. “A woman after my own heart. Go on, I’ll be fine.” _You_ _’ve no special obligation to me,_ he tried to make his eyes say, although it wasn’t what he wanted to say and he was sure Vax knew it.

“Don’t encourage this,” Keyleth objected. “Vax. Vax! Talk her out of it!”

Vax vanished out into the rain after his twin.

“Sweet Pelor, you’re soaked,” said Percival. “Aren’t you cold?”

Cold didn’t even begin to describe it, but what was the point in complaining? “Lovely and refreshing,” he said airily.

Grog gave Gilmore an appraising look. “We better give him something,” he said. “Don’t want him turning into one of them frozen statues.” He wandered off for a moment, then pulled a dark hooded cloak from somewhere on the ground, wrung it out, and brought it back to drape over Gilmore’s head and shoulders. “Better?”

The cape was cold and damp, and it stank of blood and smoke. It had probably been pulled off a dead body. But he supposed it would keep the worst of the rain off and the clamminess would fade a little as he wore it. “Delightful,” he said. “I’m touched by your concern, Grog. It’s flattering.”

Sherri rejoined them, holding the wand Gilmore had used in his fight which had somehow made it back with him. She must have attuned it to herself sometime last night, sensible woman. Empress Salda had both of the smaller children by the hand and was holding them close, a blade hanging at her side. Odessa stood with them, holding out a little dagger of her own. It looked to be not much more than an eating knife, but she held it with purpose.

If Gilmore wasn’t already so emotionally drained by everything that had happened, seeing the twelve year old princess channeling her father’s sense of duty and grimly standing guard over her family would have been devastating. As it was, her attempt to be grown up and helpful was just one more heartbreak to add to the pile, hovering on the edges of his exhaustion.

He had a harder time holding on to his numbness when he saw the blood on her clothes and realized it was probably his from helping Sherri tend to him, but at the same time it solidified his self-control. That desperately brave little girl was _not_ going to see him break down. He was tired and cold and miserable and standing in the ruins of his life’s work, but for her sake he would damn well be charming and jovial all the way back to the keep.

He smiled. “Who’s ready for a little walk?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "One Night Only, Everything Must Go" was my working title for this before the Scarlet Pimpernel stuff started creeping in, so I had to fit it in somehow.


	10. The Moonflower

Later on, Gilmore would have more nightmares about the endless trudge back to Vox Machina’s keep than about facing down Thordak. He was not fond of long journeys by foot at the best of times; long journeys by foot through the ruination of his beloved home while cold, injured, and so tired he could barely put one foot in front of the other were orders of magnitude worse.

He learned of Arcanist Allura’s visit the night before, and while he was glad to hear she was safe and well, her report that Westruun had likely been attacked too based on the severing of her sigil connections there did not do much for his spirits. He wouldn’t be able to verify his own connections for himself until he had a chance to recover a bit, but he didn’t hold out much hope.

Keyleth and Percival had to support more and more of his weight as they continued, especially after he used the very last of the strength he had thought already completely depleted to scare off some would-be robbers. Eventually he was half draped over Vex’s bear. But there could be no stopping for rest until they reached safety, so he kept up a stream of light banter to distract both himself and the children from their exhaustion and the sights and sounds around them.

By the time they reached the entrance to the underground passage that would finally take them under the city wall to the keep, he was sure his fever was returning. They set him down on a wooden crate at the bottom of the ladder as they sorted out lighting some torches, and he stared blindly off into space, grateful for the momentary respite but now unsure how he was going to get up again. It would be so nice just to fall asleep. He vaguely heard Sherri saying something about wet clothes now that they were out of the rain. Yes, that would be nice too. He didn’t even remember what it felt like to be warm and dry anymore.

Someone pressed something into his hand.

He looked down at it. A slightly wilted bit of green with a couple of small white flowers attached to it.

He looked up and raised an eyebrow.

Sherri shrugged. “A reminder,” she said. She leaned over him, her body blocking view of the rest of the group, and peeled the disgusting soggy cloak from his back. “Did you know that one day ages ago, a captain of the guard came in with one of these to see if us magical items experts could give them any clues about the owner?” she continued in a whisper into his ear, and tucked a damp black and silver card, torn and scorched around the edges, into his hand next to the tiny sprig of—

They were moonflowers. He stiffened.

She straightened up and patted him on the shoulder, dropping the lump of dripping cloth onto the floor of the passage. “I told them it was very nice and I was sorry I couldn’t speculate any further. But I know your work when I see it. And it didn’t take long to figure out that it hadn’t just been a private commission.”

He stared at her for at least a full minute. “I don’t pay you enough,” he said finally.

“You keep saying that, and I keep agreeing,” she said, pulling off her spectacles and wiping them dry, then replacing them. “But the raise might have to wait until we’ve sorted out this little dragon infestation.” She crossed her arms. “Oh come on, why did you think I knew you’d go back out there like a damn idiot hero last night? I didn’t like it, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop you.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out a fuzzy purple house robe. “Once I’ve had a chance to rest, I’ll see if I can contact any of the other staff here or in Westruun and see who made it out and if anything is left. And we can go to this Whitestone place and make plans for rebuilding while you recover. Maybe even open up a branch there if we have time, who knows.”

He was still staring. “Sherri, I…”

She gave him a hard look, then kicked lightly at his foot. “Don’t you start crying on me,” she muttered. “You start now and you’re not going to stop, and I know you’ve got your pride. When we get to the keep I’ll find you some privacy and you can fall apart to your heart’s content where no one can see. All right? Now give me your arms so I can put this on you.”

She busied herself with pulling the fluffy robe over him and waited for him to regain his composure. “Thank you,” he said once he trusted his voice not to break. “Thank you dearly, for everything. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

She reached for his hand and gave it a little squeeze, taking the flower and card back before the rest of the group could come to retrieve him. “Yes, yes, I know, good help is hard to find,” she said.

“And good friends.” A moment passed. The new robe started to take the edge off the worst of the chill. Maybe he would be able to stand up and get through one more long walk after all, as long as he was out of the rain. “You really think we can do it?”

“You’ll bloom wherever you’re planted, Shaun Gilmore,” she said with a smile. “And you’ll be glorious.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the ride!


End file.
